Vegetables
Vegetables are obviously a mainstay of a vegetarian diet. The food group classified as vegetables is probably the most diverse and colorful, with hundreds of edible plants cultivated around the world. Loosely defined, a vegetable is any edible part of a plant. This includes roots, such as beets and carrots; leaves like kale, spinach and lettuce; and flower buds like broccoli and cauliflower.
It’s no secret that vegetables are good for you. Take a health survey and you’ll almost certainly find a question about whether your diet is rich in fruits and vegetables. What makes vegetables so nutritious? The answer is a combination of nutrients, fiber and a high water content that make most vegetables low in fat. They deliver a concentrated dose of vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients to the diet, and they greatly reduce one’s risk for heart disease, stomach problems, certain cancers and obesity. You can eat vegetables raw or cooked, and they can be cooked in a wide variety of ways. They are also the basis for gums, starches and other ingredients that are added to recipes to give foods a tastier consistency.
Like fruits, humans have always eaten vegetables. They were easily found in nature by early humans who grazed and foraged for food in undeveloped areas. Native plants with edible parts have always been incorporated into the diet of indigenous populations. Early on, the percentage of plant foods in the human diet was much higher than it is today. Still, there are more than 60 million hectares (a hectare is 10,000 square meters) of vegetables cultivated for food throughout the world today.
A diet that contains 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables daily is considered optimal for good health. While that may seem like a lot, it’s basically very easy to achieve. A serving of most vegetables is only ½ cup. A salad made with a cup of dark leafy greens, a tomato and some sugar snap peas and mushrooms is a delicious way to get almost an entire day’s worth of vegetables into your diet in one shot.
If you’re not the raw foods type, you can cook your vegetables either plain or in a sauce, as part of a stew, in soup or in a casserole. Do you like your pizza with mushrooms and peppers? That’s three servings of veggies right there! The key to eating and enjoying vegetables is to make your plate colorful and vary the ways that you prepare your veggies. The nutrients in a particular vegetable give it its color, so eating a rainbow of colors every day virtually guarantees a nutrient-packed diet. Red veggies like tomatoes protect you from heart disease and high blood pressure. They also contain a phytochemical called lycopene that can boost your body’s resistance to cancer. Green veggies like spinach and kale are packed with vitamin C and protect your liver and immune system; yellow and orange veggies like carrots and squash provide the powerful antioxidant beta carotene; and purple veggies like cabbage and eggplant are good for your brain.